<p>furminator is amazing. been using it for years on dog and cats. works wonderfully, gets all the loose hair, doesn’t hurt them, and i think they enjoy it a little.</p>
<p>My cat likes Scoop Away cat litter the best. Be careful not to use your hands to play with them. They’ll grow up and think they are play toys, which gets old real fast!</p>
<p>^I have plenty of battle wounds all over my arms and hands.</p>
<p>Not all cats are friendly, just like people. One of my cats, who is a rescue cat, has always been nervous around people, still is after seven or eight years. Much less will she tolerate the dog!</p>
<p>True story–we brought home a kitten who was so exhausted by the hour-long car ride from the breeder that he immediately jumped into the litter box and settled in for a nap.
His older brother was not amused.</p>
<p>Regarding food, check with your vet. Our vet told us several years ago that current wisdom says wet food (canned–brand is immaterial) is best–the high carb content of kibble has caused a lot of diabetes in cats. We feed wet food but use a small handful of Science Diet Oral Care (large kibbles–for adult cats only) as a midnight snack because it helps keep the teeth clean. You also may need to experiment with a feeding schedule. It took us a while to figure out how to space meals so we weren’t being awakened at 5 am with a demand for breakfast (hence the midnight snack). But don’t be surprised if you hear wild galloping in the wee hours–many cats get the “crazies” and zoom around the house, up and down stairs and around every room, for no discernible reason–the middle of the night seems to be the favored time.</p>
<p>My kittens and cats always loved the game where you just move your hand around strategically under a blanket. It is pretty amusing to watch them enter their imaginary hunting, stalking, and pouncing world. My most interesting cat related memory was putting on a meercat nature program and observing my tabby sit and watch the entire thing. He really seemed to get a lot of enjoyment out of it.</p>
<p>My two cats get drawn to the TV if they see any chirping critters on the screen. The kitties can watch The Life of Birds for hours. Meercat Manor would probably work well for them, too. Apparently, not all cats are TV fanatics - my friend’s cats pay no attention to the TV no matter what is happening on the screen.</p>
<p>Just to be clear: The Roll n’ Clean litterbox I recommended is not one of the electric mechanical things. Totally manual. Works great.</p>
<p>Idad, I looked at it and totally agree: your cats’ litterbox looks like something that does work. We were talking about the self-scooping and self-flushing (Cat Genie) contraptions.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about the cats, they’ll have you trained in no time 
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Cheapest toy any catnip toy in the back of a paper bag that’s lying down.</p>
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<p>Yeah. I agree. I’ve never seen one good word written about the electric rake contraptions. All of them seem to be pretty much a nightmare.</p>
<p>There is one super high-end motorized litter boxes that works on the same principle as the Roll 'n Clean, motorized to roll automatically. At $340, it’s a bit rich for my pocketbook and, frankly, rolling the Roll n Clean once a day (with two cats) and dumping the pull out drawer in a bucket is pretty painless litterbox duty. </p>
<p>[Automatic</a> Self Cleaning Litter Box Litter-Robot](<a href=“http://www.litter-robot.com/]Automatic”>http://www.litter-robot.com/)</p>
<p>If I didn’t have the Roll n Clean’s, I’d probably go with big Rubbermaid bin with a hole cut in the lid. I did try a conventional box with no top, but tall sides to contain the litter. That was OK and would be a good choice for a cat that simply refused to go into an enclosed box.</p>
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<p>Be careful. I had a kitty that liked that game. Then it grew up and I would awake in the middle of the night with a cat inflicting much pain on my feet, whether or not they were under the covers!</p>
<p>Plastic milk jugs produce a lot of cheap pet toys! My cats love to bat the plastic rings around, and my old dog still loves to flatten the empty jugs!</p>
<p>Aww, kittens! I miss having furry babies around the house. Mine loved to chase balls of crumpled tinfoil, just make sure you don’t leave it someplace where they can get bored and start nibbling on it.</p>
<p>I agree 100% with the suggestion to start out by having them stay in one room, instead of immediately giving them full run of the house/apartment. Put several things in that room that smell like whoever lives in the house–old T-shirts, pillowcases, etc.–so that the kitties will be familiar with the scents of the resident humans. This worked really well with our kittens. The first week we had them, we mostly just spent as much time in the room with them as possible, even when they didn’t feel like playing or snuggling–we’d just sit in there, studying or reading or whatever, and let them get used to sharing their space with enormous two-legged creatures. :)</p>
<p>A cheap toy they’ll never get tired of - tea bag wrappers, scrunched up into little balls. We call them kickers. They love them as much as the laser pen. Throw them across the floor and watch the kitties go!</p>
<p>We got this self groomer for our cat about 10 years ago and she still loves it: [Amazon.com:</a> Imperial Cat 5415 Self-Grooming Brush: Kitchen & Dining](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Cat-5415-Self-Grooming-Brush/dp/B005F5BSD8/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1313789102&sr=8-10]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Cat-5415-Self-Grooming-Brush/dp/B005F5BSD8/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1313789102&sr=8-10)</p>
<p>She also loves old shoelaces, and ping pong balls. We come down in the morning and track down the balls under the couch, behind the curtain, etc.</p>
<p>Also, I recently got this food ball to get to $25 free shipping on Amazon and Tabby loves eating from it - she pushes it around with her head. [Amazon.com:</a> PetSafe SlimCat Food Distributor Ball, Blue: Home & Garden](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-SlimCat-Food-Distributor-Ball/dp/B0018CG40O/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1313789250&sr=1-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-SlimCat-Food-Distributor-Ball/dp/B0018CG40O/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1313789250&sr=1-1)</p>